1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of timepieces, and more particularly to a novel dial watch having a special time line hand cooperating with the minute hand of the watch for determining elapsed time and countdown time of events.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
In the past, it has been the conventional practice to employ a watch having an hour and minute hand rotatable over a dial face provided with a plurality of spaced-apart time markings such that the angular position between the hour and minute hand determines time. In addition, second hands are often employed for the determination of smaller time increments and in more sophisticated watches, rotating bezels are employed which are useful in determining start and stop conditions for the timed events. Such a watch is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,475,902.
However, many problems and difficulties have been encountered when employing conventional watches with or without bezels that stem primarily from the fact that determination of elapsed time of an event is difficult to establish and it is also difficult to establish countdown time. For both of these events, mental calculations must be made by the timekeeper in order to establish the relationship between the moving hand and the markings on the dial face as well as the bezel itself. For example, there are many uses for stopwatches and their ability to measure in very small increments of time. Furthermore, chronographs are required for celestial and other navigational calculations. Neither the stopwatch nor the chronograph fill a void for applications encountered in everyday events; for example, timing a phone call or how long a certain task will take.
Therefore, a long-standing need has existed to provide a timepiece, such as a dial watch, which will measure events in minutes and show the timekeeper at a glance exactly what time it was when the event started, elapsed time, finish time, and with the use of a bezel, how much time to go or countdown before the event is finished. Such a timepiece is neither a stopwatch nor a chronograph.